Wild Germplasm for Genetic Improvement in Crop Plants

Wild Germplasm for Genetic Improvement in Crop Plants addresses the need for an integrated reference on a wide variety of crop plants, facilitating comparison and contrast, as well as providing relevant relationships for future research and development. The book presents the genetic and natural history value of wild relatives, covers what wild relatives exist, explores the existing knowledge regarding specific relatives and the research surrounding them and identifies knowledge gaps. As understanding the role of crop wild relatives in plant breeding expands the genetic pool for abiotic and biotic stress resistance, this is an ideal reference on this important topic.

1. Introduction: Potential of Wild Species in Plant Breeding 2. Wild Cotton Genepool: An unopened treasure 3. Wild Wheat Germplasm: An unopened treasure 4. Emerging Avenues for the Exploitation of Wild Relatives of Rice in Plant Breeding 5. Genetic Resources and Pre-breeding of Maize 6. Utilization of wild ancestors for biotic and abiotic tolerance in barley 7. Effect of natural variation on biofortification 8. Untapped soybeans; A genetic reservoir for its improvement 9. Wild Sunflowers: The primary genetic resource for sunflower breeding 10. Brassicas: A Complete Guide to the potential of their wild relatives 11. Wild Germplasm: Shaping future tomato breeding 12. Potato wild relatives, a reservoir of genetic diversity for the sustainability of world's 3rdmost important food crop 13. Wild relatives of sweet potato; Distribution and prospectus for crop improvement 14. Tapping the genetic diversity in sugarcane wild germplasm using next generation genotyping and phenotyping tools 15. Generation of new landraces?of forage species; Red Fescue and clover 16. Chickpea wild relatives: potential source of ancient genes for stress tolerance breeding 17. Mungbean Wild genetic resource; a potential source of genetic improvement for abiotic and biotic stress tolerance 18. Lentil Wild genetic resource; a potential source of genetic improvement for abiotic and biotic stress tolerance 19. Wild Relative Species and new plant breeding technologies

Dr. Muhammad Tehseen Azhar is working as Associate Professor at the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad-Pakistan, where his primary responsibility is teaching to graduate and post-graduate classes. Besides, his focus is screening and development of segregating population resulting in the development of several bulks of cotton with more yield and fibre traits. Dr Azhar has specific interest in the development of cotton germplasm having tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. These advanced strains of cotton have showed good performance for yield of cotton in national traits and those genotypes are suitable for cultivation in high temperature and water stress conditions. Being a Borlaug Alumnus, he worked with various cotton geneticists namely, Dr Richard Percy, Dr Lori L. Hinze and Dr Jame Frelichowsk at Texas A&M University and USDA-ARS, USA. Dr Azhar has completed various research projects funded by Higher Education Commission, Pakistan; CAS-PARB and Cooperation Organization Partnership for Science and Technology, China. Besides, Dr Azhar is Endeavour Alumnus and appointed as Adjunct Lecturer at the School of Plant Biology, UWA. Recently he is appointed as Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Agriculture Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China. Due to his consistency Dr Azhar is appointed as a Chair (20219-2021) of Germplam and Genetic Stock in International Cotton Genome Initiative (ICGI). He is winner of ASIA Young Scientist Innovation Gold Medal-2023 from International Cotton Researchers Association (ICRA), a sub-committee of International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), Washington.

• Provides a single-volume resource to important crops for accessible comparison and research
• Explores both conventional and molecular approaches to breeding for targeted traits and allows for expanded genetic variability
• Guides the development of hybrids for germplasm with increased tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses